by Ana Marie Cox

White House Press Secretary Tony Snow has taken on an unprecedented role this campaign season as an official RNC fundraiser. While the President, Vice-President and their wives regularly appear as headliners for political fundraising events, cabinet members have generally stayed away from such stumping -- it's too much politics, not enough policy. Snow's appearance on the trail is either a testement to desperate measures or an nod to transparency. He has been telling reporters that the speeches he gives will not be "red meat" and will simply be "trying to do a positive discussion on what the President is doing and why," which is, by the way, what the day job is. Attempting to address the conflict inherent in the dual role, today Snow told the press corps

I suppose -- yes, I'll take a vacation day. The way it is, it's all paid by the RNC. They're open press. I know that I'm doing -- I'm doing something in Wisconsin on Thursday.

The reference to the "vacation day", however, earned a small footnote in the White House's email distribution of the briefing:

Mr. Snow, like other commissioned officers in the White House, is construed to be on duty 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and therefore is not required to track vacation or leave time. As such, the law permits him to engage in political activity (such as speaking at fundraising events) during normal working hours without the paperwork required of employees who are on a leave system.

What's best about this addendum is that it makes Snow -- and the other commissioned officers of the White House -- sound like super heroes: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! (Is it also 365 days a year?!) What's not so great about it is how it doesn't really clear up the conflict that prompted it. Of course, there's probably nothing funny going on, we trust the whole thing has been vetted by White House lawyers and everything -- then again, so was the detainee program.

Elsewhere on the web, the real Foley scandal:

I refer here, of course, to the fact that Dennis Hastert is a bumbling half-wit--something that became apparent to the world last week but had been common knowledge in Washington for almost a decade.